Dave's cuts are going be deep and they will hurt

[FellatioNelson]

I've been hearing this all day on the radio. I can't take the suspense any longer. They are going to affect the lives of 'every one of us'

I feel like a person wincing and clenching my teeth in anticipation of the big fuck-off needle the school nurse is wielding, and I'm next in the queue....

Come on then, what's it going to be?

Grants are available from student finance to lower income families. On a sliding scale.

Our income is approx £30k and ds got a small grant, as part of his total package (fees and maintenance loan) which was around £8k total. We can't afford to help him out so he'll finish uni with £24k ish of debt.

It's odd isn't it the tax avoidance is 'right and proper' ie avoiding putting into the pot is OK but taking out too much is not. Is that because it's the feckless poor that do the taking and the richer (and cleverer apparently) folk that do the giving.

But if you add that VAT Sue52 then you are taking away the chances of my bright child too, do you honestly think that extra 20% will find it's way back to the local 6th form college to help those students or will it go into the pension funds of the council workers ?

"It's odd isn't it the tax avoidance is 'right and proper' ie avoiding putting into the pot is OK but taking out too much is not."

There is nothing odd about it - tax avoidance is legal but benefit cheat is not. I would not say it is right and proper but it is legal and while it is legal people are entitled to take advantage of it.

As I said being lawful doesn't make it morally right. You can defend it all you like.

The fairly small percentage of people rich enough to want to employ people to find avoidance tactics for them are too few to make a significant difference anyway! It's billions of pounds a year we need to find here, not the odd million.

Putting savings into an ISA is tax avoidance. The tax break is to encourage people to be responsible for themselves. What's wrong with that? People should be encouraged to make provision for lean times, I think it's a good thing.

It is right and proper to do your best for your family within the law. I am not a socialist and nor are most people in the UK or indeed on the planet. It is only the left who think we should gratuitously give big chunks of our money and disadvantage our own children so that others are given more and given that high tax rates mean less tax raised and less for the poor it is not sensible to support high tax policies anyway if you're left wing even.

What I meant about most people don't earn much is that if you need £20bn saved you won't get it from taxing 0.001% of people because there aren't enough of the rich to get much from it. You need to take it from most people, either benefit cuts or removing tax credits and increasing tax rates. The lowest UK tax rate uesd to be about 33%. it is not inconceivable that we will need to raise it to that. Perhaps we could merge NI and tax and say there is one UK tax rate of 33.3% which every one pays. That is about 20% tax plus 10% NI so not that much out of what most people now pay and if most of us knew a third of what we earn goes to help the poor etc that is fine. Once it gets to 40 - 51% etc it's just so high you wonder why you bother to go that extra mile or if you're clever you just ensure you arrange your affairs so you don't, go to Switzerland or whatever.

And perfectly moral.

Mingg Only fair that I am taxed on this. Ideally we should have equal opportunity for all.

Besides which, ordinary people go to great lengths to avoid or evade tax every single day, across the whole wealth spectrum. Anyone who who is self-employed, on benefits but occasionally (or regularly) working for cash in hand, and anyone who runs their own company, from big to very, very small will tell you that!

I'm not sure why it should be ok for them either!

You could say that the people who earn every penny PAYE are at a distinct disadvantage there. We can't put a penny in our back pockets, or charge anything 'to the company'.

I am all for truly progressive taxation like in Scandinavia provided that you get something in return and imo here you do not.

Fellatio - "ordinary people go to great lengths to avoid or evade tax every single day" - agreed

This report from the ONS suggests that our current tax system is already pretty progressive :

www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_social/Taxes-Benefits-2007-2008/Taxes_benefits_0708.pdf

During 2007/8 the bottom fifth of households earned £4700 whilst the top fifth earned £72600 (so about 16 x bottom fifth).

After tax and benefits are taken into account the top fifth reduces to £52,400 and the bottom fifth increases to £14,300 (so now 4 x).

In addition, the bottom fifth receive benefits in kind.

Progressive taxation sounds interesting. Not everybody goes to great lengths to avoid paying tax.

I think for most people it comes down to a question of trust, and judgement. In theory I would happily pay more tax if I could have trust a governments judgement about how it was spent. I would want it spent bravely, sensibly, and constructively - in a way that helps to eradicate poverty and inequality at its root, All I've seen over the last 13 years is an ever-increasing array of fancy sticking plasters, with a festering wound lurking beneath them.

Unfortunately, for this new government, all its energies now have to go into reducing the deficit, and not healing the people.

No, but most people avoid paying tax in one form or another (by receiving childcare vouchers for example)

People only go to great lenghts to avoid tax when it's higher. The 50% rate has led to people flocking to accountants as it always has done. If it's lower they don't. If it were 33.3% for all merged tax and NI one rate then I don't thin they would either,.

We are nothing like Greece nor even Germany for illegal tax evasion by the way. It is common to give a doctor every time you have an operation or a baby etc a large cash sum in an envelope may be several thousand pounds. We don't have anything like this here. the UK is one of the better nations for playing fair which is great.

Mumatomany Of course I dont't believe it will go to local 6th form college, it is just like any other tax raised, the monies to be used as the government decrees, not my decision how it is spent.

Lenin - take 'serious old money' out of the equation for a moment, (because that probably only accounts for 10% of the 1% anyway!)

Perhaps only 1% of the population is lucky enough to have the required combination of talent, drive, intelligence and the necessary mentality to generate big money? After all, it's not easy, or we'd all be doing it.

Given that they create employment, put their money into the economy, and pay the higher taxes used to support the disadvantaged, it seems only fair to let them reap the rewards of their efforts. Taking away a person's motivation is very dangerous.